steampunk defined.........

Steampunk Laptop. by Jason Van Slatt (Wikipedia)
as mentioned on our TV show by Brooke Binkowski........Brooke used the word "steampunk" to describe Renee Ricketts art. (see www.ricchettadesigns.com), so i looked it up......on wikipedia which said that they got their information from Steampunk Magazine who defines Steampunk as: "Steampunk lives in the reincarnated collective past of shadows and ignored alleys. It is a historical wunderkabinet, which promises, like Dr. Caligari's, to wake the somnambulist of the present to the dream-reality of the future. We are archaeologists of the present, reanimating a hallucinatory history."

OK, I have no idea what that means but I'm thinking it might mean to take "things" from the victorian age and re-assign its function and looks a bit to make it interesting art. functional? beats me. I think you have to be pretty far up the sci-fi tree to understand the meaning of this.

We have a local artists, (Escondido, CA) Artist Renee Ricketts takes the insides of defunct computer towers and creates interesting art with them. She also smashes empty cans, from Spam, colas, tinned vegetables, etc. and re-works them into interesting and funky books that are displayed in local galleries. The are not fragile, the viewer may handle them, read them and move the working parts.
They are a scream, if you haven't seen or held one of her pieces, they are available everyday of the weeks except monday at the Escondido Municipal Gallery, 262 East Grand, Escondido, CA.
(As seen on our N Art Magazine TVshow, september 28, 2008)